..to prefer to be an expectant mother rather than a pregnant person?

[CatWithKittens]

The BMA has advised doctors not to refer to an expectant mother but to a pregnant person. Leaving aside the obvious question as to whether somebody who is trans-gender and pregnant is not also going to be a mother, do other people think I am being unduly sensitive when I say, that if either term has to be used, I would still prefer to be referred to as an expectant mother (if we get round to DC6)?

I vastly prefer 'pregnant person' as a term. It describes the medical reality. You may or may not ever become a 'mother' with all the cultural baggage that represents, but you are, when pregnant, a pregnant person, with all the medical difference that makes, regardless of anything that happens after.

I actually think the medical profession treats 'people' better than it treats, 'mothers' expectant or otherwise. 'Expectant mothers' get ignored and written off, their opinions are devalued. 'People' are people first.

So 'pregnant person' is a huge and valuable step forward.

Surely though, a man who has gone through the process of a sex change and a womb transplant, would want to be called a woman/mother? To call "her" a Pregnant Person, would be an insult, as it is highlighting that she isn't a real female, even after all the surgery. I think that would be a slap in the face!

So what happens when you're no longer pregnant? Are you a post natal person, Morphene?

When you are delivering the placenta, what are you? oR when your perineum gets stitched back together? Or when the colostrum appears?

I can't think of alternative to post natal person.

And I would assume that fathers don't get mentioned at all, as that is non medical, unless they are a genetic parent, in which case they are the impregnating person?

care to expand manumission or is that the best you can do?

No I'll leave the long juvenile lists of rude words to you, sweet pea

Medical people should call patients what they prefer. Why should I be called a pregnant person when I would hate that term?

When pregnant I just wish I was called Eve or Miss Online.

I not a HCP mother and will never be.

The correct way IMO is to call a patient by their name.

Only female mammals can give birth. A human female is a mammal.

Only male mammals can produce sperm. A human male is a mammal.

What we are being led to believe in this world of alternative facts is that women can produce sperm and men can give birth. Which of course, given biology is nonsense. Women and men are gender specific, male and female is biologically specific. There is a difference. As any one who has studied biology knows.

The overwhelming majority of trans people have zero objection to this or any of the other nonsense that's constantly trotted out. It's only a handful of attention-seeking extremists who do NOT represent most trans people spreading this "don't say mothers" nonsense.

Absolutely. But it's the attention-seeking extremists who get their voices heard by media & government, that's the problem.

And quite a few 'linguists' who want to have their voices heard too. Or maybe just the same one.....

tartan erm...yes postnatal patient/person works fine? I'm not sure how the medical profession currently refers to people post miscarriage though....I feel there should be a sensitive word that applies to all people who might need watching for things like retained products of conception etc. even postnatal has baggage you might not like if you lost a baby at 12 weeks.

Maybe postpartum is less loaded? Again I don't know if it strictly refers to live birth.

What really frustrates me here is that pregnancy is reduced to simple biology by the term pregnant person. Which ignores the roles of expectant mothers and expectant fathers.

Preparing to parent a child is about much more than than that biology, the role that mothers and fathers play in the child's life are important. As they are to society as a whole.

You can't reduce that relationship to that of someone whose uterus is occupied.

Surely this is just part of more general shift in society to use neutral language? It's not necessarily a deep implicit statement about trans politics!

Yes, it is. It is a statement about trans politics to use neutral language in contexts where it is superfluous.

Only women can get pregnant. This is a well-known fact. There is no need for neutral language there.

Neutral language is only necessary to emphasize that sex does not matter in who can have which job or government position, etc.

It is most decidedly not needed when talking about pregnancy. That men cannot get pregnant might make them feel discriminated, but it is not societal discrimination that could be fought by using neutral language, it is just a biological fact.

Both terms are accurate in your case so stop throwing a hissy fit and wasting medical professionals time.
Aren't the medical professionals wasting their own time in ditching the perfectly accurate term 'expectant mother' and writing paragraphs of blether about 'pregnant people'?

OED:
'A woman in relation to child to whom she has given birth... a woman who has continuous care of a child esp. by adoption... any female animal in relation to its offspring.

Or shall we now write the term 'mother' out of our language, in case it offends someone?

You can't reduce that relationship to that of someone whose uterus is occupied

Not every woman who is pregnant is happy to be so, or wants to become a mother, so referring to all pregnant women as "expectant mothers" is not that perfect.

But all pregnant women are, quite obviously, women.

I would say that all pregnant people are quite obviously female.

Haven't RTFT but taking the transgender issue out of it- some pregnant women may be surrogates or planning to give the child up for adoption. Maybe it would be insensitive to call them expectant mothers and therefore a more PC term is used?

Pregnant woman would do in those circumstances surely? Why the need to swap woman for people?

Well this is a surprise - I briefly saw a headline about this yesterday and I thought it was about treating pregnant women as people rather than brood mares. How wrong was I!

Mother and father should be written out. If mother goes, then so does father. Perhaps son, daughter, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, husband, wife, gran, granpa (and all the other grandparent names), mama, papa. Have I missed something out?

People shall be henceforth call person. Hello little person here's your person!

Well done person on giving birth to your person!

I don't mind if a patient asks to be referred to as a pregnant person, for whatever reason.

I do mind 'pregnant person' being the default. Not because I'm anti-trans, but because I am concerned that gender neutral language is actually an erasure of women. I'd be interested to see if gender neutral alternatives are being pushed as much for words that include male/men/father etc as they are for the use of female/women/mother etc because it certainly seems that it's just references to femininity that are being objected to and that's not OK.

I want to change my personhood into a personhood. That's going to work!

Top one hundred persons of the year!